Drarry Weather
by Light-Devil
Summary: Life continues on. A story of a life through the weather of Draco's decisions after the Battle of Hogwarts.
1. Chapter 1

And I stared out the window, that dreary summer day as the grey sky wept tears of frustration and grief.

I wondered what would've it been like if I had spoken to him about myself… just once. If instead of the usual derision and sneers I shot at him, I had just caught his eye and explained to him why.

Why I did what I did. Why I chose what I chose. Why I'm here, years later sitting in my house. All alone, gazing out the window and thinking of What-Ifs. Why when I look out the window and see the gray sky all I can think of is his face and my regrets.

I didn't realise it when I knew him, when I was still near him, but… because he never truly hated me, it gave me hope. That I could be a better person. That maybe I wasn't everything my parents had raised me to be. That… I was someone. And when I sneered and made fun of him, it never occurred to me how important he was to me.

He made me _me_. He defined me. He countered me. He was my opposite. It's funny. Staring at that gray sky and thinking of What-Ifs, seeing his face and his eyes and imagining him here next to me, I think I'm going crazy.

Because he's got Ginny and I've got no one. Not even a rival anymore. And I can't bring myself to hate him, Merlin's Beard, I can't even bring myself to be angry with him. Because it's my fault. It's all my f*cking fault.

The drops race down the glass, squiggling random lines and I can't help but think of him and I on our brooms, playing Quidditch. A small smile plays on my lips and I can't wipe the shock off of my face that I'm amused.

I haven't smiled since Harry's wedding, when I had that fake, stapled smile of "Good luck to you and your future", while inside I was rotting away. As my fingers trace over my trembling lips, everything grows blurry and I realise I've begun to cry.

I press my face against the cool glass and breathe in, out, long breaths, trying to regain my stoic frame of mind. But as I watch the rain still fall, I know the tears won't stop. Because I'm alone. I don't even have an opposite anymore. I've nothing to define myself.

And on that dreary summer day as the grey sky wept tears of frustration and grief, I looked out the window and laughed, as the tears streaked down my cheeks.

Because it's funny. Hilarious. I never realised the truth of it until I was alone.

But… they say opposites attract. It seemed bizarre to let drizzle from my mouth, because he wasn't there, but - as I choked back the sobs and wrapped my arms around my body, I spoke those words, the ones I'd been meaning to say ever since the first time I met Harry Potter.

"My name's Draco. Do you want to be friends?"


	2. Chapter 2

And as the snow begins to melt, little puddles on dead, yellow grass, I'm still sitting here and wondering why I haven't approached him yet. We work at the same place, different departments, but the same place. He's an Auror and I work as a minister. I see him sometimes with that goofy smile on his face and I can tell he's thinking about Ginny. That red-headed Weasley.

Curiously, I met someone the other day. Her name's Astoria. I knew her sister in Hogwarts. It seems so long ago. I still haven't found myself yet and I'm still at the window watching the weather dance and seasons dwindle. It's funny. Astoria has brown hair and green eyes. She has a quick wit and wasn't scared to approach me. When I look at her, I see him.

We're going to a Quidditch match this Sunday.

I won't really be watching the players, all I'll be looking for is a glimpse of that scar and those glasses. Maybe I'll wave this time. Because he always go to Quidditch matches.

I'm pathetic. I am. I hope Astoria leaves me as soon as she realises… that I'm not ever going to be able to love her. She's too much like Harry for me to hate her, except she's too Slytherin to understand that deep inside me I am rotted and dead and all I ever feel revived from is catching a, if only for a brief moment, look at him.

I almost feel sorry for Astoria. She's coming over this evening for dinner. I'll offer her some chocolates, champagne and strawberries and we'll have a wondrous time and then she'll want me to kiss her and I will, but I won't be kissing her, I'll be kissing the person with green eyes and brown hair.

So, I'm still here at the window, watching the snow melt into a mush of grey, like a splattered brain and I'm still thinking of Some-Days. One blade of grass is still alive, but soon it'll drown from the unfrozen water. I wonder if I cast a dark spell at it, if it would be a mercy killing. Maybe it would be for the best.

Maybe someone should kill that little last blade of grass, stretching for a reason, a need to grow, so that the water doesn't feel any guilt. It strikes me for a second that I'm no longer even talking about the grass and the water. It's Astoria and I.

I lounge back into my chair and take a deep breath. Then the words fall out, eerily sparking a feeling of similarity.

"Astoria, can we just be friends?"

And then, without meaning to, the true reason splurts forward into my mind and my sight reels and I'm breaking apart, falling into nothingness and I can't breathe. My lungs feel like they're being compressed into a small little box. The pain of not being anyone to anyone is ripping me into pieces and I need something to define me, otherwise I will fade away. I need a fill-in, because I'll never have the one person who made the most sense, who meant the most to me.

And I can't even cry. Because it's my fault. And that would be self-pity.

This Sunday, I'm going to go to a Quidditch match with Astoria. We'll watch the game and I won't look for him. Because I can't let him be the one to define me anymore, because he won't, because he's got Ginny and I've go no one.

I need a definition and if Harry won't be my opposite anymore, than I need someone new… Not new. I still need him, but Astoria will have to do, because she's the closest I've come to ever being close to anyone like Harry.

And as I sit there hyperventilating, watching the ice dissolve into the nothingness that I felt, trying to regain my sanity, I speak those words that I still wanted to say, even though I knew I'd never be able to say them to the person I still wanted the most.

"Can we be friends?"


	3. Chapter 3

And as the sky darkened to a point where the nocturnal animals came out and were shocked by the rays of sun that escaped the almost, entirely encapsulating clouds, I sat there.

A gurgle sounded nearby, followed by the cooing whispers of a mother still in awe of her creation. Scorpius still didn't feel like mine. He sat there with my eyes and my hair and my colouring, but he didn't feel like mine. Because he wasn't really mine. Well, according to the birth certificate, the blood spell tests - he is and Astoria swears she's seen no one else other than me since that moment when she approached me.

She announced her pregnancy with the smirk of a Slytherin and I had to admire her cunning. Astoria was me in female form. She knew what she wanted and she knew how to get it.

We're getting married this December.

Scorpius was conceived, with green eyes and brown hair in my thoughts. Astoria, some may think. Maybe. It's taken me almost two years for me to admit that. I'm fond of her. More fond of her than I ever was of any other girl. She can make me smile. Not many people could do that. I could only list two others and of them, my mother had already passed away.

There was always him. Even thinking of him made my lips twitch, stretching into the unfamiliar smile of reminiscing. And the scariest thing about reminiscing is that you're thinking about something which has passed.

"Do you want to hold him, Draco?" Astoria asks.

The clouds roll by, waves of grey pillows, mildewed, and falling apart. My memories are those clouds. I try desperately to reach out and capture them, but they slip out of my grasp. Memories of him; where are they? What have I become?

Who am I? I need a definition. Please someone throw me a line.

When was the last time I tried to catch his eye? Have I given up on him? When did I lose all hope? Have… have I stopped thinking of him as my most important person?

No. I stared at him last week. Friday, he came in flying on his broom announcing the birth of his second son, Albus Severus Potter. He was beaming. He always did have a penchant for the dramatic.

I sent him a congratulations card, signed - "Love, Anonymous." Somehow, not having him defining me defined me anyway.

"Draco?" Astoria whispers in my ear, placing Scorpius onto my lap.

I look down at Scorpius and somehow I wish he had looked a little more like Astoria. So, when I looked at him I'd be able to see the love he represented, which I hid - so well, sometimes, that I forgot that I felt an ache, larger than anything else.

All I see when I look at him is a baby who looks like me. Who isn't mine. Because I don't truly love Astoria. And I'm a hopeless fool. Pathetic. And I've fathered a child who looks exactly like me. Merlin, I hope he isn't like me.

No.

He won't be like me. I swear it. He'll be whoever he wants to be. He'll be allowed to be friend with whoever he wants to be friends with. I can only thank one person for this.

Him.

I substituted him with someone else; she defines me as a husband and a father now. But he shall forever have this hole in my heart. It exists at the deepest part of my soul, an aching gap which sometimes glosses over, but never goes away.

And I sit there, the weather almost unremarkable, with Scorpius in my lap, my eyes locked on my eyes in his face, with Astoria standing behind my chair, her warm breath on my neck.

But still… What-Ifs, Some-Days and Back-Thens are echoing in my mind and I mouth those words which keep coming back to haunt me. Those words which seep out of that void at the deepest part of me. The biggest regret. My greatest mistake. Those words I never said to the person who has had the biggest influence on me.

My lips form around the soundless words like we were old mates as they slip inaudibly from my mouth.

"Do you want to be friends?"


	4. Chapter 4

And the fog of the crisp new morning is absolute, as the Hogwarts Express looms closer and closer; I sit in the waiting chairs with Astoria's hand interwoven in mine, gripping my fingers hard. She's nervous for him. Though I knew I'd never love Astoria, we were friends. And I think she accepted that, even though I knew she loved me more than life itself. Her intense gaze made me feel guilty sometimes.

I feel Scorpius' fingers clamped tightly onto my cloak and I give a reassuring pat on his head, with the slightest of smiles at the edge of my lips.

He looks up at me with my eyes and smiles with my mouth and nods in a very astutely Malfoy way. I may not have raised him with creating a miniature me in mind, but I suppose I was the best thing he'd been able to choose with such limited options open to him.

He'd never met Harry Potter, anyway.

The thought of him at once made my heart constrict trying to block out the pain from flowing through, but also triying to widen to reel in the other emotions that I connected with his name.

"Dad, do you think anyone I know is going to be at Hogwarts?" Scorpius asks in the only difference between us.

My voice never had that timbre. Scorpius was his own person, and I didn't mind that one bit. In fact, when I heard him speak, even though it was probably just the insane fancies of a man with a hole in his heart, I thought I heard a touch of Harry in there somewhere.

The question pains me, because Scorpius has suffered for choices in my youth. For not standing up for what I wanted, for listening ever closer to my parents. In the wake of Voldemort's - yes, everyone says his name nowadays, nothing to fear - demise I'd been the victim of hate mail.

Mother and father died sad though natural deaths, being despised by the rest of the wizarding world. The Malfoy name became something one spat as an insult to someone's pride or to imply that one was a traitor to a cause.

"I don't know, Scorpius, is Goyle's daughter of age yet?" I question back, but already know the answer.

The Goyle's are as shunned as we are, though they lack the social awareness to care much about it. As they tend to not react as much, other's stop prodding them as much and they've been left alone and safe for that past few years.

I never thought I'd ever meet a women who would fall in love with Greg, but… I suppose those years of trauma when he couldn't eat without feeling violently sick from memories of serving as a Death Eater could've served as a fast-diet program. Last I'd seen of Greg, he actually looked the dashing figure. Brawns or brains still sticks though. Only for him, naturally, I received both.

As the train's brakes screech on, I look over to Astoria who's smiling and thinking about her times in Hogwarts. I don't want to think about mine.

"No, Dad, she's almost three years younger than me! What about that boy you're always saying I should meet? Bogus… Algus… Albus! What about Albus?" Scorpius has lost his nerves and, with the energy only an eleven year old boy can harbour, he's bounding with questions.

"I never said you should meet him. Do I ever tell you to do anything except what you truly wish?" I ask, hoping that I haven't been spoiling him.

"No, Dad," He whines and I know I've done a good job; he would never abuse the trust I have in him, "But, Dad, what so great about Albus? Why do you think I'd truly wish to meet him for?"

"I knew his father, personally. He is one of the most amazing people I have ever had the opportunity to meet in my entire life. I'm proud to be the same age as him, not to mention that I went to the same school and was in some of his classes even. The respect I have for Harry James Potter exceeds all of my other thoughts," As Astoria's fingers slip from my hands, I know I've said too much.

"Albus' dad is The Harry Potter?" Scorpius questions, his mouth hanging open in awe.

Everyone knows about Harry Potter. It's funny. We don't even talk anymore and he's still defining me. People hate the Malfoy's, people love the Potter's. Crazy world, I live in. We're opposites, again. As I think that, the gaping hole in my hearts grows larger.

"Yes, Scorpius, The Harry Potter. Now, go check to see if you have everything - you'll be boarding soon. I don't want you coming back and telling me you've forgotten to pack underwear," I smirk and my son's face turns a brilliant shade of red.

He jets off into a crowd of other people and I follow him with my gaze. Astoria sits next to me in silence, her hands folded neatly into her lap. I can tell she wants to say something. So, I wait.

The train whistles, announcing it's readiness to be boarded. My wife sits there, mulling over the best way to say what I know she wants to say. Her mouth opens and the syllables flow, slowly out.

"Is… Harry, he's…" Her words stop and she meets my gaze.

My gaze does not waver and I can see the tears forming a shiny layer on his… her green eyes. She smiles, a defeated, but enduring smile - the smile of my mother when father succumbed to being a Death Eater again. Astoria knew exactly what she got into the moment she approached me.

I'd never said it in a more clear way, than now. The wordless conversation going back and forth between us.

"I can see why you never encouraged me, darling. You had high standards. I don't suppose I'll ever be in his place?" her voice cracks and I can see she's trying her hardest to hold back the tears, the ones she thinks she's hidden from me.

"No, dear. I'm sorry. His place will always be there," it hurts me inside to answer her question. I am fond of Astoria, she has been my close friend, lover and wife. She has never been my beloved.

"It's fine, Draco. I'm fine. I just thought I had a little bit of a higher chance. I still have a place, of course?" she asks and makes a statement at the same time, and I can't help but admire her Slytherin qualities.

"Of course, Astoria. Your place is almost where his is," It's the truth and it hurts me to admit it, but his place will always be larger than her's and his place will always influence me more.

My answer seems to tide her over and I pull her into a soft hug. I do not like it when people cry. It irks me. She stayed in my arms for a moment and closed her eyes. I enjoyed the warmth, but, as unfaithful as ever - it was not her I saw in my mind.

"Ewww, Mother, Father. Get a room!" gags Scorpius, followed by a boy with brown hair and green eyes.

And my heart stops for a moment, because that little boy is the spitting image of Harry when we first met. And that moment in my head keeps spinning around and around and around. Why didn't I ever ask that question? What was wrong with me? Would I ever ask that question?

"Dad, look who I found. The Potter boy. He said he's afraid of getting into Slytherin, but he thinks that the Sorting Hat will listen to him. He said his father say it did, so it must. His dad is hardly ever wrong, he says," Scorpius babbles on, but I cannot hear him.

All I am thinking is Harry. And our first year at Hogwarts. Second year. Third. Fourth. Fifth. Sixth. The Battle of Hogwarts. Oh, god. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, Harry. Why didn't I ever ask that question?

And Scorpius who hasn't stopped talking, turns to this replica of the eleven year old Harry and what he says breaks me into pieces.

"Do you want to be friends?" Scorpius asks.

The little boy nods and I can't help but wonder if it really was as easy as that. Had I ruined my whole life based on my stupid fears? As the train driver calls for boarding and I give Scorpius a kiss goodbye, the thought lingers in my mind.

Scorpius waves at me once and then boards the train and I can't help but feel a surge of pride. My son at Hogwarts. My son being able to do what I had spent my whole entire life regretting not doing.

And Astoria walks forward as the train pulls out, waving our son off. The fog of the station lifts, the steam cleaning the atmosphere. A voice, one I'd recognise anywhere, speaks behind me.

"So, Draco, how's life been treating you?"

And I turn and I just stare.

Because Harry Potter is standing there, behind me, talking to me. And all of the sudden every single suppressed feeling I have jolts through my heart, and tingles in my fingers and my mouth becomes dry and my tongue becomes swollen and I feel all sweaty and cold and hot. And most of all, a sense of pure joy leaves me feeling nauseous and giddy.

"Good, Harry. You?" is the only thing I manage to work out of my twitching mouth, which I'm trying not to smile with.

"Fine. You've changed, Draco. I…" and he pauses and I can't stop staring at his eyes, his hair, his face, taking in the details, "I never hated you, Draco."

And this sentence doesn't even phase me the slightest, because I knew that all along, "I know, Potter. I know. I've been meaning to ask you something. And I think it's all the more imperative since it appears our sons have taken a liking to each other."

"Yes, Malfoy?" and he says in that cautious voice, just a little higher pitched, that I knew so well.

And I can't believe I'm saying it, finally, after all those years. Here it is. My What-Ifs, Some-Days and Back-Thens. My greatest mistake. Those words I never said to the person who has had the biggest influence on me. Those words, the ones I'd been meaning to say ever since the first time I met Harry Potter.

"Do you want to be friends?"


	5. Chapter 5

I'm sitting in that chair, again. Staring out the window.

Summer is here and for once… for once I'm happy about it. The sun… it's so bright. It burns to stare at, but I can't stop, because it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I never bothered to before; what attraction did a giant ball of burning gas have for me? Why would it ever matter to me? But… now, suddenly it does - everything has multiplied in value.

I don't know why I feel so optimistic. It's odd and feels weird to be inside me - it doesn't fit in my soul. It doesn't match me. I can't help but feel a sort of apprehension towards my hope - this probably isn't real. I can't really be here. This is all just a dream. Still, there's some guilt inside me and always will be. But… I'm happy and I can't explain it at all.

Laughter… has become natural. I don't know when it happened. But it has. I didn't think it ever would. That single question I asked as the train drew away from the Platform 9 and 3/4's on that day my son first went to Hogwarts.

Albus and Scorpius became best friends. They both ended up in Ravenclaw - I can't say I'm that surprised. If I wasn't so utterly conniving, I would've ended up in Ravenclaw as well (never Gryffindor, that option wasn't ever open for me). Astoria was disappointed and angered at my indifference (though inside I was so very happy. I had hoped Scorpius would end up in Gryffindor, but since he ended up with Albus - I didn't care at all. It gave me an opportunity to see… Well.)

Astoria divorced me on Albus' first day of his fifth year. She said she couldn't take it anymore and I stayed silent. We looked each other in the eyes. I nodded. She nodded. It was accepted. We were never meant to be together, but we'd still stay friends. She was too much like me to ever really completely reject someone so perfect. And I say that modestly, because if she weren't so much like me she would've said that out loud, admitted it.

That day, as Scorpius first stepped onto the Hogwarts Express, changed my life forever. And when I asked Harry that question and he glanced at me and smiled that smile of his, everything became brighter.

Albus visited our estate often and Harry accompanied him, to drop him off. Of course, I always invited him for tea and biscuits. Of course, I sat with him. But mostly it was Harry talking. I didn't care. Not at all. Not the slightest. His voice was… a comfort to me. I wrapped in around my mind at night, when I laid in bed with Astoria, her arms around me which I imagined as some else's, and let it rock me to sleep.

Every time Harry came over, that gap - that aching wound - began to slowly close. And I felt complete. Defined. For once, I truly understood a stupid muggle "movie" line - "We are one." Except that I knew Harry would never see me the same way. It didn't matter. I saw Harry every week and got to listen to his soothing voice every week. It was enough. It would have to be enough.

The more Harry came over, during those five years, the more I learned of him, of his family. The more I became entranced with all Harry was. And by how… rocky Ginny and Harry's relationship was. There was such anger in his eyes sometimes when he talked about her. I couldn't tell what it was, but something was getting between them.

Ginny was an auror too. You wouldn't expect it from the way she looked. I had no idea until the day she died in action. She died a heroine. A true martyr. It happened during the end of Scorpius's and Albus's fourth year, the year before Astoria left me.

I didn't know a single thing about it until Albus, James and Lily turned up at the front door. They looked pale and sick. Not as bad as the things I had seen, but they were worrying. I ushered them in and told Astoria to look after them. She gave me this look and I knew she knew what I was going to do, but she gave me that tight lipped smile and bowed her head.

Astoria was the closest one who came to getting into my heart. Unfortunately, it was already occupied.

I apparated straight over to Potter's place. He was so, so quiet that it literally hurt to see him. His hair was dishevelled, a birds' nest, and his glasses were on the floor, cracked - as if he had thrown them there. As if he no longer wanted to see reality.

I could hear him breathing, dry and croaky. As if he were falling apart in front of me. And I couldn't take it. I… couldn't take it at all. Watching him fall apart was tearing at my chest. Digging in claws and ripping out chunks of my flesh.

I took a step towards him and froze when his eyes flicked up from his stupor to look at me. His eyes were empty. So empty. They were blank. There was no emotion in them. The Harry I knew, had let define me, wasn't in the room with me.

"Draco? What are you doing here?" he asked in a voice so emotionless that I snapped.

I snaked my hand into my pocket and flicked out my wand as I whispered, "_Crucio_."

Harry, years of training under some of the best aurors, looked up snail-slowly as the spell hit him, his face twisting in pain. His features contorted, as the magic went to work. A silent scream escaped his mouth as his body seized - a pain more than one thousand burning irons being applied to his body rippled through his muscles.

I watched, continuing the spell. I watched, as the tears leaked from his eyes - his mouth twisted into an abnormal shape. I watched as his body spasmed with hurt I knew, hurt I had once known. And then it happened.

I watched as Harry looked at me with absolute fiery emotion in his eyes. I couldn't handle the spell anymore. It failed, fizzing out of existence. He stayed on the floor for a few seconds, taking in deep gasps of breath. I waited.

I always waited for Harry.

And then he turned his head to face me, those brilliant green eyes of his staring straight at me, and I knew this was it. He would hate me forever. I could live with it.

Because Harry was back.

And then words, dry and cracked emerged from Potter's lips, lips that were suddenly smiling in a smile of pain, of sadness, of tiredness, but most of all - of something I never thought to see again.

Of love and trust.

I fell to my knees then and there, because I couldn't stand up any longer - I just couldn't hold the weight of that stare. What he said went right past my head, but I crawled my way over to him and pulled his shivering head onto my lap.

And poured my soul out to him.

Everything.

The What-ifs, the Back-thens, the Some-days, the reasons, the excuses, the lies and the truths. And Harry just laid there and listened, staring up at me, even though I couldn't meet his eyes. Even though he'd just lost a loved one forever, and all I'd done was hurt him.

He sat there and listened. And he understood. He understood me. Those eyes, they accepted everything I said. He knew why I'd done what I'd done and he knew why. And the trust in them never faded.

I've never said it out loud to myself or anyone else before, but as I sat there, dribbling out everything I'd been keeping in, I finally said those four words that had been building up.

"I love you, Harry."

There was a long silence as Harry just lay there on my lap, his eyes boring into mine. He smiled, so softly, so gently, that I knew that this was a rejection. It was a rejection and I knew it.

He reached a hand up and ruffled my hair, my skin tingled where he accidentally touched my face, "I'm sorry we can't be friends anymore, Draco."

I nearly cried. But I held it in. My world tumbled inwards. Spiralled away. I had just ruined everything. Everything and anything. And then he said something. Something that did make me cry.

I cried with joy.

—

I stare out that window, because Harry sits there with his kids and Scorpius, talking with them and laughing. It's been three years since then. And the sun is shining on them, illuminating them. The sun is only beautiful, because they're all there - underneath it.

Albus and Scorpius graduate tomorrow. We're celebrating today.

Because we're a family now. And I'm happy. And I can't believe it.

Harry's emerald green eyes meet mine as he looks through the window at me and he gestures with his hand to come out and join them. I stand up and throw open the window, and crawl through.

Harry laughs, that laugh of pure glee, and I smile. I smile at them all.

This has to be a dream. I'm too happy. The world is too beautiful. All of them encompass me in a hug and I laugh.

I laugh with my family.

—

You see, it was that question. A single question in his house after Ginny was lost. After I had tortured him. After I had admitted everything to him.

After he understood me. Everything.

And he asked it when I never could. When I was never able to. It took us so very long to get here. Our lives already lived, our children already adults. Harry looked at me and asked, his voice so shy and quiet,

"Do you want to be more than friends?"

_End._


End file.
